State of the Race

In 2012's "economy election," voters will make their choices based on their local unemployment rates, gasoline prices and other key measures of the quality of daily life. Use WSJ's interactive map to browse economic data by state and county and review state vote projections. Alternatively, draw your own map and share it on Twitter.

Patchwork Nation is a reporting project of the Jefferson Institute that aims to explore what is happening in the United States by examining different kinds of communities over time. The effort uses demographic, voting and cultural data to cluster and organize communities into types of place. Patchwork divides America's 3,141 counties into 12 community types based characteristics, such as income level, racial composition, employment and religion. It also breaks the nation¹s 435 congressional districts into nine categories, using the same data points and clustering techniques. You can read about the methodology of the project on the methodology page.